John Lentaigne

Rt. Hon. Sir John Francis O'Neill Lentaigne CB (21 June 1803 – 12 November 1886) was an Irish administrator, lawyer and Privy Counsellor.

He was born the son of physician Dr. Benjamin Lentaigne of Dominick Street, Dublin, an immigrant from France. He was one of the first pupils to attend school at Clongowes Wood College. He graduated from Trinity College and with a medical degree.

He was a Privy Counsellor for Ireland from 1803 to 1886. He served as a Justice of the Peace and Deputy Lieutenant for County Monaghan and was appointed High Sheriff of Monaghan for 1844–45. He became a member of the Prisons Board and was Inspector-General of Prisons in Ireland from 1854 to 1877 and Commissioner of National Education. He was president of the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland between 1877 and 1878.

He was invested as a Companion of the Order of the Bath and made a Knight of the Order of Pius IX.

On his death in 1886 he was buried at Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin. He had married Mary, the daughter and co-heiress of Francis Magan of Emoe, Westmeath, with whom he had 12 children.